{"id":5680,"date":"2015-08-20T00:17:48","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T00:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=5680"},"modified":"2015-08-20T00:17:48","modified_gmt":"2015-08-20T00:17:48","slug":"wheat-flour-is-a-dangerous-substitute-for-amala-and-iyan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=5680","title":{"rendered":"Wheat flour is a dangerous substitute for Amala and Iyan."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Oluwole Ajagbe:\"Wheat\"<\/a>\"Delta<\/a><\/p>\n

“Wheat is now the preferred swallow meal for many Nigerian families particularly in the urban centres. Sadly too, some rural dwellers have hooked onto the fad that<\/p>\n

wheat is a \u201chealthy\u201d food.
\nEarly this year, a middle-aged man from Ekiti State came to my office for solution to his health challenges \u2013 diabetes and high blood pressure. Upon enquiry on his
\ndiet, he said wheat was his major meal
\ndaily. According to him, virtually all the
\ncivil servants working at the state and
\nlocal governments in Ekiti State also eat
\nwheat as their regular meal. In fact, he
\nsaid those that are not eating wheat
\nparticularly in the state capital could not
\nafford it, but not due to knowledge of its
\nharm to health.
\nWhat an irony? Otherwise, how do we
\nexplain the preference of wheat to
\npounded yam, which the Ekiti people
\nhave been eating for good health and
\nvitality centuries back?
\nThe prevalent consumption of wheat
\nacross the country has clearly shown that
\nin the absence of knowledge, people can accept poison as therapy. After all, wheat is the first choice food for diabetics on the
\nstrength of doctors\u2019 advice. Nationwide,
\nwheat has overshadowed yam flour and other starchy foods that are peculiar to our culinary culture in Nigeria. Unfortunately, this is one dietary change
\nthat may prove suicidal for many people given the inseparable linkage of diet to health or ill health. Though wheat, like other grains, is rich in fibre and some
\nother nutrients, it is one food anybody
\nthat desires wellness and long life should
\nbe kept at arm\u2019s length. Why? There are three inherent dangers in the chemistry of wheat that make it a classic destroyer of health. I call them the downsides of
\nwheat.
\nWheat contains gluten \u2013 a protein that
\ncauses inflammation, a systemic process
\nthat has harmful effects across all the
\norgan systems in the body including the
\nbrain, heart, joints, eyes and digestive
\ntract. As a matter of fact, inflammation
\ndoes not only precede all degenerative
\ndiseases like diabetes, cancer, stroke,
\nglaucoma, arthritis and Parkinson\u2019s
\ndisease, but also fuels their insidious
\nprogression. A review paper in the New
\nEngland Journal of Medicine listed 55
\ndiseases that can be caused by eating
\ngluten-containing foods. The diseases
\ninclude osteoporosis, anemia, cancer,
\ncanker sores, fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis
\nand multiple sclerosis. The paper also
\nlinked gluten to many psychiatric and
\nneurological diseases including depression, schizophrenia, dementia, nerve damage, epilepsy and autism. The paper concluded that there are 120 or more diseases associated with eating foods that contain gluten. Dr. Joseph A. Murray, MD states that he is surprised how often gluten affects the brain.
\nAnother study by Dr .J. Robert Cade, MD
\nof the University of Florida showed that
\npeople with autism and schizophrenia
\nhave high level of peptides in their urine. These peptides, according to Dr. Cade,
\ncome from casein (protein in milk and
\nother dairy products) and gliadin and
\ngluten in wheat, barley, oats and rye.
\nAnother study of 30,000 patients
\nanalyzed from 1969 \u2013 2008 reported in
\nthe journal of the American Medical
\nAssociation found that people diagnosed
\nwith gluten-sensitivity had a higher risk of
\ndeath from cancer and heart disease than the normal population. Worse still, the bulk of wheat being consumed in the country is the American hybrid strain, which has much higher gluten content than the European wheat.<\/p>\n

The second inherent danger in the chemistry of wheat is its high Glycemic
\nIndex GI. Glycemic Index is a scale that
\nranks carbohydrate rich foods by how
\nmuch they raise blood sugar level
\ncompared to low glycemic foods. Wheat
\nhas GI of 71 compared to yam and sweet potato with GI of 49 and 54 respectively.
\nInvariably, eating food with high GI like
\nwheat regularly promotes weight gain and makes diabetes intractable.
\nAccording to Dr. Mark Hyman, MD \u201cwheat is a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, cancer, dementia, depression and many modern ills.\u201d If one may ask, what is the science behind the recommendation of wheat as a meal to fight high blood sugar?
\nAlso, many people do not know that wheat, which is being promoted as a
\n\u201chealthy\u201d food, is one of the most acid-
\nforming foods. What are the health
\nimplications of eating acid forming foods?
\nWheat and other acid-forming foods lower
\nthe body pH and deplete oxygen level in the cells and tissues, which is the primary cause of all diseases. In other words, if wheat causes low pH that triggers diseases, eating wheat and its products is akin to adding fuel to fire for people battling with one health challenge or the other.
\nWhat are the physiological effects of low pH on the body organs? Eyes are the first victims of degenerating effects of low pH and its consequences include
\ncataract, glaucoma and other forms of
\nvisual impairment. Also, low body pH
\nmakes the heart overwork by robbing the blood of proper oxygenation and causing irregular heart beat and systemic degeneration of the heart muscle and
\nblood vessels, which can ultimately lead
\nto heart attack and stroke. The brain and nerves also malfunction
\nwhen the body pH is low (acidic pH).<\/p>\n

Furthermore, acidic pH undermines the
\nvital functions of the pancreas \u2013production of insulin for glucose
\nmetabolism and digestive enzymes for
\nsynthesis of protein. Yet, the dysfunction
\nof the pancreas triggers diabetes and
\ncancer, with the former setting the stage for the latter. A joint report by the
\nAmerican Cancer Society and the
\nAmerican Diabetes Association noted that
\npeople with type 2 diabetes have high
\nrisk of developing cancers of the liver,
\npancreas, colon and bladder. Acidic pH
\ncauses clogging of the colon with acid wastes resulting in chronic constipation,
\nwhich makes healing of any health challenge impossible.
\nTIPS
\nHealthy alternatives to wheat
\n\u2022 Yam & yam flour
\n\u2022 Unpolished rice
\n\u2022 Sweet potato.
\nHave [truncated by WhatsApp]”<\/p>\n

AMALA IN THE OCEAN OF GBEGIRI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Oluwole Ajagbe: “Wheat is now the preferred swallow meal for many Nigerian families particularly in the urban centres. Sadly too, some rural dwellers have hooked onto the fad that wheat is a \u201chealthy\u201d food. Early this year, a middle-aged man from Ekiti State came to my office for solution to his health challenges \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[456,455],"class_list":["post-5680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-healthy-food","tag-wheat"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Wheat.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1tC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5682,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5680\/revisions\/5682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}